PX Espresso Hour☕with Luke O'Mahoney

Send us a textBooooom 💥This was a really great conversation and one I had been looking forward to for a while. I have been following Figures and the work Virgile have been doing with Figures for the last year or so.Not only is their work impactful and a much needed innovation to compensation benchmarking and transparency, but their internal culture also seems to be really solid and genuinely uniqueI wanted to take a "look under the hood" in this conversation with Virgile and it was a lot of fun!Some of the conversational threads we explored:💡The Figures founding origin story💡Creating a culture of entrepreneurship💡Generational challenges to traditional working models💡The value (and perils) of high work ethic💡Accurate and ethical salary benchmarking💡Running compensation reviews at scale💡Building culture in an early stage start-up💡4 day work week Vs 9 day fortnight 💡Embedding meaningful and actionable cultural values and behaviours...all in less than an hour 🤯😅Guest Bio:Virgile is the Founder  & CEO of Figures, a HR Saas platform to easily compare your employees' compensation and benefits to the market. Virgile is a former VP of People and has rich background in HR and People OPs within startups and scaleups which lead him to found Figures.Contact Virgile:Email: virgile@figures.hr Virgile Raingeard | LinkedInFigures - Compensation Management | Compensation Benchmarking Tool | Salary BenchmarkingContact Luke:Email: luke@sapienx.co.ukLuke O'Mahoney | LinkedIn🎵Music Credit: Anton Vlasov from Pixabay🎵 If you like the podcast, you may want to sign up to the PX Espresso Newsletter ☕ the weekly newsletter for People people who think like Product people.Music by Rockot from Pixabay

Jessica Zwaan, an Amazon Best Selling author and founder of a consultancy focused on people operations, shares her insights on transforming HR practices. She discusses her unconventional career path and the evolution of People Operations, advocating for a blend of product management principles. The conversation highlights the impact of COVID-19 on workplace dynamics and the concept of Employee Lifetime Value for enhancing retention strategies. Jessica also teases an innovative 24-hour live-stream podcast idea, promoting collaboration in the HR space.

Send us a textBooom 💥Another AWESOME conversation, this week with pioneer of modern L&D and an inspirational solopreneur turned entrepreneur 🤘🏻The main focus of our conversation was exploring "learning" as a concept and unpacking how to go about designing learning experiences which actually land and lead to meaningful change.Some of the general themes we touched on include:Creating a culture of curiosityFollowing passions and life-long learningEmbracing your inner "geek"The role of psychological safety in creating the conditions for learningLimitations of traditional education systems and approachesSelf-awareness and providing others with the space to exploreFocusing L&D on understanding how the brain works and how behaviour change happensLavinia also shares 3 brilliant tips on creating effective cohort learning experiences which are totally applicable to anyone looking to implement a learning programme.As always, I really enjoyed this conversation and hope that you do too! ✌🏻Guest Bio:Lavinia Mehedintu has been designing learning experiences and career development programs for the last 10 years, both in the corporate world and in the academic environment. As a co-founder and learning architect at Offbeat, she applies adult learning principles so learning and development professionals can connect, collaborate and grow together.Contact Lavinia:Email:  lavinia@offbeat.worksLavinia Mehedințu | LinkedIn Newsletter (offbeat.works)Contact Luke:Email: luke@sapienx.co.ukLuke O'Mahoney | LinkedIn🎵Music Credit: Anton Vlasov from Pixabay🎵 If you like the podcast, you may want to sign up to the PX Espresso Newsletter ☕ the weekly newsletter for People people who think like Product people.Music by Rockot from Pixabay

Send us a text Guest Bio:Colleen Saringer, PhD - Fractional Chief Wellbeing Officer - is an accomplished population health expert, published author and speaker. She has 25 years of experience helping  organisations nationwide (USA) solve for the transformation of workplace culture and climate through the lens of health, well-being, equity, inclusion, policy and cross-collaboration. Contact Colleen:Email:  colleen.saringer@gmail.com Colleen Saringer, PhD | LinkedIn    Contact Luke:Email: luke@sapienx.co.ukLuke O'Mahoney | LinkedIn🎵Music Credit: Anton Vlasov from Pixabay🎵 If you like the podcast, you may want to sign up to the PX Espresso Newsletter ☕ the weekly newsletter for People people who think like Product people.Music by Rockot from Pixabay

Send us a text Boom! 💥These conversations just keep flowing! I am so blessed!This week I am joined by Ingeborg van Harten, Founder of 7people People & Culture consultancy. Inge is also a multiple time Head of People and Global HR Lead, having support more than 50 organizations in here career (including a few unicorns like Mollie 🦄) to grow successfully. INSANE amount of value in this conversation, I can't believe I get to call speaking to people like Inge, work! 😱🙏🏻The main focus of our conversation was: How to create irresistible workplaces.We covered a whole lot of ground, but if you listen to this conversation you will come out the otherside with a much clearer, no BS, view on what it takes to create truly incredible People Experience (PX) and genuinely irresistible workplaces 🤘🏻Some of the things that came up:Transparency is keyUtilise design principlesExcite people! (focus on challenges not outputs)Put traditional performance reviews in the binInvest in Managers and build strong teamsBuild culture before brandLeverage the employee voiceUtilise skills from across the business to improve People OpsSooooo much great stuff in this 60 minute coffee chat!  As always, I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope that you do too 🤘🏻🎙️ Links: Your People and Culture Team | 7people Resources | 7people Creating Irresistible Organisations - learning and inspiration event TicketsGuest Bio:Ingeborg is the founder of 7people whose team of People & Culture experts help companies to become irresistible. This means attracting, retaining and engaging amazing talent. During her 20+ years in global HR roles, Inge has supported more than 50 organizations (including a few unicorns 🦄) to grow successfully. Ingeborg has now built a team which does only this: 'Enabling startups and scaleups to succeed, with the best people and culture'. Inge is an an optimist who loves to create and connect, positively impacting people’s lives, whilst enabling businesses to thrive. Contact Ingeborg:Email: ingeborg@7people.teamIngeborg van Harten | LinkedInContact Luke:Email: luke@sapienx.co.ukLuke O'Mahoney | LinkedIn🎵Music Credit: Anton Vlasov from Pixabay🎵 If you like the podcast, you may want to sign up to the PX Espresso Newsletter ☕ the weekly newsletter for People people who think like Product people.Music by Rockot from Pixabay

Send us a textBoom! 💥Another incredible conversation with a passionate, inspiring, and hugely knowledgeable People pioneer 🚀 This week I am joined by Jill Felska, former Director of People and Culture, and Founder @ Want To Work ThereWe have a great conversation reflecting on our experience as People Managers, the good, the bad, and the ugly! Managing people is HARD and often managers are under supported and under trained for the enormity of the task.If you are a Head of People / HR / People Ops Lead currently tasked with enabling People Managers and deveolping manager capability, this conversation is great place to start!Jill walks us through her 4 stage framework to get the foundations in place for new and existing managers to be successful 🚀As always, I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope that you do too 🤘🏻🎙️Episode Links / References:PX Espresso NewsletterTraining for the Modern Manager Want To Work There PodcastWant To Work There NewsletterManagement Expectations Matrix Spreadsheet (Free resource)Stop wasting your most precious resource: Middle managers Google ReWork 10 Core Management CompetenciesGoogle ReWork Free Management Training CurriculumGuest Bio:Jill Felska is a pragmatic optimist who has spent the last 15 years finding meaningful ways to improve people’s experience at work. A former Director of People and Culture in the tech space, she is now the founder of Want To Work There - an online resource hub that provides practical, actionable advice and resources for building better workplaces. Most recently, she’s spent the last 18+ months building the company’s first digital product, Training for the Modern Manager - a comprehensive, interactive curriculum that organizations purchase once and then use to internally train all current and future managers.Contact Jill:Email: jill@wanttoworkthere.comJill Felska | LinkedInContact Luke:Email: If you like the podcast, you may want to sign up to the PX Espresso Newsletter ☕ the weekly newsletter for People people who think like Product people.Music by Rockot from Pixabay

Send us a textIf you like the podcast, you may want to sign up to the PX Espresso Newsletter ☕ the weekly newsletter which brings you actionable tips and valuable resource flags on building thriving culture through intentional PX design - 📧 Newsletter sign upBoom! 💥A slightly different format today, Vol. 1 of a new "solocast" series where I will share insights into the life of a People Ops Solopreneur...I will use this short solo episodes to share my latest thinking around People Experience (PX) as a Product, the future of the People profession and the evolution of HR.I will also share my learnings as I scale a business of one with value led content at it's core.These episodes will be pretty rough around the edges, so don't expect a polished production and well scripted dialogue... these will be 20-40 minute "brain dumps" but I hope contained within them will be some useful practical takeaways.Whether you are an operational People Ops professional or a budding solopreneur, there should be some value in these solocast episodes for you 🤘🏻If ever you have any thoughts, questions, reflections whilst listening please do send them through on email or LinkedIn 👇🏻 would love to hear what works and doesn't work about this format so I can tweak it for maximum value.🤘🏻🎙️Contact Luke:Email: luke@sapienx.co.ukLuke O'Mahoney | LinkedIn📨Free Weekly PX Design Newsletter📨🎵Music Credit: Anton Vlasov from Pixabay🎵 If you like the podcast, you may want to sign up to the PX Espresso Newsletter ☕ the weekly newsletter for People people who think like Product people.Music by Rockot from Pixabay

Send us a textIf you like the podcast, you may want to sign up to the PX Espresso Newsletter ☕ the weekly newsletter which brings you actionable tips and valuable resource flags on building thriving culture through intentional PX design - 📧 Newsletter sign upBoom! 💥Another week, another really great conversation to share with you all🤘🏻This week I am joined by Matt McFarlane, Snr People Experience Director @ Oyster.Oyster are one of the most unique (and cool) People team set ups I have come across. Matt talks through the structure a little in our chat, but the umbrella term for the People part of the business is "Workplace Team", under which there are functions you might expect, like:✅ Workplace Design✅ Talent Acquisition✅ People ExperienceAnd some you might not, like:🤔 Programme Management🤔 Internal Comms & Events🤔 IT (yes, org wide IT!)It's a really great set up which makes a ton of sense to me. I hope Matt will join me again to talk this through in detail as it wasn't the main focus of our chat.We covered topics like:Psychology as a base for a career in People / HRThe transition from HR to People ExperienceMoving away from the semantic connotations of “Human Resources”PX as an enabler of people and performanceRemote and Hybrid workplace designContinuous Performance Management / open feedback loopsBut the main practical takeaway, Matt walked me through the Oyster Band Index (OBI) -  Their approach to compensation levelling and creating a equitable, transparent, and consistent compensation philosophy for remote-first global hiring.As always, I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope that you do too 🤘🏻🎙️ Guest Bio:Matt McFarlane is the Senior Director of People Experience at Oyster, a global employment platform that makes it possible for companies everywhere to quickly and compliantly hire talent anywhere. Matt is experienced working across complex, globally distributed environments and is passionate about building commercially focused and people-centric workplaces.Contact Matt:Email:  matt.mcfarlane@oysterhr.com  Matt McFarlane | LinkedIn  Contact Luke:Email: luke@sapienx.co.ukLuke O'Mahoney | LinkedIn🎵Music Credit: Anton Vlasov from Pixabay🎵 If you like the podcast, you may want to sign up to the PX Espresso Newsletter ☕ the weekly newsletter for People people who think like Product people.Music by Rockot from Pixabay

Send us a textIf you like the podcast, you may want to sign up to the PX Espresso Newsletter ☕ the weekly newsletter which brings you actionable tips and valuable resource flags on building thriving culture through intentional PX design - 📧 Newsletter sign upBoom! 💥Another awesome conversation to bring you today with one of the brightest minds in People & Culture today... The one and only, Olya Yakzhina 🤘🏻 Head of People @ remote-first tech startup, Switchee. Olya is also Co-Founder of the People Stories slack community 🙌🏻The main practical takeaway in this episode, Olya walks me through the headlines of Switchee's employee engagement framework. In the process we touched on so many interesting and insightful areas:⚡Remote-first "dos and don'ts"⚡The isolation that often comes with being the People Lead⚡The People Ops balance: People Needs & Business Needs⚡Bringing the SLT and wider business with you⚡The difference between satisfaction and pure joy in people experience⚡How to interpret engagement data and what you should take action onI can't wait to have Olya back in the virtual PX Espresso studio, so much more knowledge and experience to tap from one of the best in our profession.As always, I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope that you do too 🤘🏻🎙️Guest Bio:Olya is a progressively-minded Head of People in a tech scaleup Switchee. She is a co-Founder of the People Stories slack community, which hosts over 1100 highly engaged People-people who are on the same mission - making every employee's experience awesome! To spread the word of positive people practices, she runs The Modern Employer podcast.Contact Olya:Email: olya.yakzhina@switchee.co Olya Yakzhina | LinkedInContact Luke:Email: luke@sapienx.co.ukLuke O'Mahoney | LinkedIn🎵Music Credit: Anton Vlasov from Pixabay🎵If you like the podcast, you may want to sign up to the PX Espresso Newsletter ☕ the weekly newsletter for People people who think like Product people.Music by Rockot from Pixabay

Send us a textIf you like the podcast, you may want to sign up to the PX Espresso Newsletter ☕ the weekly newsletter which brings you actionable tips and valuable resource flags on building thriving culture through intentional PX design - 📧 Newsletter sign upBoom! 💥Another awesome conversation with an equally awesome people and culture nerd... But first, I must address the elephant🐘 ... this conversation was just over an hour! Sorry about that, I was absorbed and missed my time keeping flag...I hope you will forgive me creeping over the promised PX Espresso Hour today once you have listened back to the conversation and taken so many incredible and practical insights on creating a transparency philosophy that works for your business 🤘🏻Adam shares a 4 step process for creating a Transparency Philosophy (in last 10 mins of the episode if you are in a rush 😆) which I think will help so many People Ops Leaders take action on what can feel a complicated and scary topic to tackle.We cover a lot of ground as always, all transparency related including:Barriers to getting started with transparency The power of Notion and Open Source Employee HandbooksUsing transparency to attract (and repel!) talentThe importance of clearly defining terms, policies, and expectationsUtilising transparency for retention, not just attractionThis conversation was so valuable that if you are currently considering how to approach transparency in your organisation and this conversation doesn't give you a practical framework on how to begin... let me know and I will give up coffee for a whole month... did I really say that? can I take it back?Nah, I stand by it!As always, I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope that you do too 🤘🏻🎙️P.S Adam recently shared an open-source employee handbook Notion template bringing together the best elements of 20 of the best employee handbooks around. It is unreal! Check it out!Guest Bio:Adam is Founder of Openorg.fyi, a company on a mission to rebuild trust, bringing transparency to the world of work. Prior to that his career spans 12 years in hands-on talent, people, and Founder roles. He scaled his last business as Co-Founder & Chief People Officer from 0 to 72 in just 18 months.Contact Adam:Email: adam@openorg.fyi Adam Horne | LinkedInContact Luke:Email: luke@sapienx.co.ukLuke O'Mahoney | LinkedIn🎵Music Credit: Anton Vlasov from Pixabay🎵If you like the podcast, you may want to sign up to the PX Espresso Newsletter ☕ the weekly newsletter for People people who think like Product people.Music by Rockot from Pixabay